Political Samsara

Why the country swung right is very easy to see if you just live out in the world and don't "listen" to the news or to social media. 

1. What I mean here by "not listening" to the news or social media is this: visiting both conservative and liberal sites, maybe a little social media, and just watching it happen, very lightly. Not actually engaging, just observing. Maybe looking once a week, no more than that. Any more than that will create confusion. 

2. Pay attention to the world, see how people talk, what they're talking about. I recommend eavesdropping. I recommend listening to friends - your friends might be in tech, they might be professors, they might be a contractor. I have friends in all these jobs. Listen to them. 

3. Once you've listened, it becomes easier to understand what people "believe" in. 

4. Don't believe in good or evil. There's no such thing as good and evil. There are harmful acts and beneficial acts, and there acts that we can't tell at first whether they're harmful or beneficial. Lots of people believe in good and evil, as essences, as eternal things, but that's fantasy. 

5. This is the method I used to understand that Trump would be elected again well before the actual election took place. Here are the specifics I saw.

6. During the pandemic, the left went crazy. They instituted DEI stuff in response to black men being killed by police. I genuinely think the intention behind the response was positive, but the response itself went too far. DEI stuff and LGBTQ+ rhetoric - not the actual actions (though at times some actions went too far as well), just the language around it all - alienated a lot of people. It was at this point that people who were in the middle or who were center-left-right began to feel as though they were not part of the reality of the country. The media played a big role in this (and it should be noted the push from left was a response to a push from the right - now we're going back to the Obama years, etc, but let's not - everything has a push a pull; in this years election, this was one push). This alienated a lot of people. 

Caveat: The first bodhisattva vow is "being are numberless, I vow to save them all." I live by that vow. All beings, especially human beings, are precious, unflawed, worthy of love and compassion. It is important to correct historical wrongs as best we might be able, to shift karma. But the response - within language, not as direct actions - went too far, and most importantly, it all became self-righteous and self-aggrandizing - this response alienated people. 

7. As people moved right in response to cultural shifts promulgated by universities, media outlets, and Hollywood (wokeness essentially, against stemming from other factors itself), the economy got worse, the Biden administration messed up in Afghanistan, the govt lied either accidentally or willfully about covid, and people became even more alienated. 

8. Mainstream news became sensationalized to the point of ridiculousness (that includes liberal and conservative outlets). It was always "democracy on the line." This escalated up to the election. CNN claimed Trump was a fascist; Musk (who is essentially a media head) said democracy would be over if Kamala won. The hyperbole was so off the charts as to be laughable - problem though, people took it seriously bc it was contextualized seriously. 

9. Trump went on Rogan; Kamala didn't. Bad move, though it wouldn't have saved her campaign. That was already lost due to the preceding three/four years. 

10. People viewed Trump as a way to bring the economy back, stop the flow at the border, and get away from a "woke" mentality that, as Jon McWhorter writes in his book Woke Racism, infantilizes black people and makes white people have to tiptoe around black people. Additionally, mainstream media - it's major flaw being that it exists in a 24 hour cycle and must get views, thus constantly having to drum up sensationalized BS to get people to look at it - was exposed. If mainstream media wants to get any credibility back, it should become a once or twice weekly publication online, and then stay quiet. The 24-hour news cycle is BS people have seen through. 

11. Thus, Trump elected. 

For liberals who are upset, I recommend watching the Rogan podcast with Trump. He exaggerates and lies about stuff - sometimes moronic stuff - but mostly what you see is a capitalist. (you could also watch the Musk podcast with Rogan - he also lies about stuff - it's funny to hear him talk about how "dems" are "importing illegals," for instance, to bolster election numbers, especially in the context of Trump winning pretty sweepingly; either dems did a bad job at this or it is what it is, a delusion, but you get a better idea of what he's about - you might not agree with it, but it's not "the end of democracy either") Basically, if you watch the Rogan podcast with Trump, what you see is a person wanting to be viewed as impressive (he talks about his "weave" a lot, he's a great weaver). He also discusses various issues - he's not always that articulate or clear, he never is, but he basically outlines policies that many conservatives might have, and then he has some policies that could appeal to liberals as well. I agree that it sucks that women's rights couldn't be thought of as important enough to vote for. It's a disrespect to women. The drill-baby-drill idea is also a bad one, and one hopes the national parks aren't up for grabs now. But generally speaking: he wants to open up the economy, end regulations, set up his tariffs, and close the border. I would view things in this way, and then consider the ways that democrats alienated people. 

For the conservatives who think they won, don't be mistaken, there is no winning, that's a fantasy. Additionally, Trump likes attention, he likes being viewed as important; if you don't believe this, investigate your own need for attention and validation; do you need attention and validation, does it help you feel as though you exist, help make you feel important? That is very real for most people, and in fact is how most people operate. Certainly how America operates. Trump is no different than that, in fact he is that idea taken to an extreme. Musk is the same way. You don't get a lot of followers and people validating you unless you are seeking that, wanting that, believing you need that. There's a lot of fear in that, a lot of fear in needing attention and validation - it's a protective position, a position of believing you are so essential, so real, that you need to be dutifully protected and then validated. It is the opposite of being courageously alone in the world. This sense of protection is a psychological guardedness, a basic defensive posture, only reaching out for attention and validation. It is the opposite of openness. It is what Trungpa called Spiritual Materialism: believing that you must protect your being and only then reaching out in order it to get something (validation or attention or money or fame, whatever). Openness is the opposite - it is the sense that there is nothing to protect, no ego to prop up with validation and attention - there's actually a giving away quality. You give of yourself to others. In this way, you serve others. Make no mistake: that's not Trump and it's not Musk. That doesn't mean that some of Trump's policies won't work out, but it does mean that most (most) of the policies will be based on a defensive posturing based on serving the self. 

A final thought about this: politics are an illusion, though there are "real" consequences. The idea that the mainstream media is less real or true than a podcast is an illusion, though a podcast has certain elements that make it more appealing than mainstream news. Social media is an illusion, a mess of conceptualization, distanced from the ground of life. It is, also, the ground of life, but conceptually, in our heads, where we engage with it, it is an illusion - we don't even know what we're seeing. There's no actual solution here, not with Kamala and not with Trump. It's just the system we've set up. Generally speaking, America, as fucked up as it is and as illusory as it is, is a pretty decent place to live. Most importantly though, there's an existential ground that we don't pay attention to. In Tibetan Buddhism, it's the charnel ground - we live upon the dead; all reality dances upon the dead, on death itself. Life is death; death is life. Politics is not the ultimate reality; it's an aspect of human existence, a contrivance, that is meant to help us organize society but that we then mistake for reality, for ultimate truth, and which then keeps us from paying attention to ultimate reality or truth. It is a distraction from who we really are, from what some people might call our spiritual selves. This ultimate reality is beyond concept, it can't be intellectualized or explained, it is not your mind but it is not outside your mind - the only thing that can really even come close to pointing at it is art. It can only be directly experienced. When you look at another person, are you seeing them? Or are you seeing you? The swinging of politics, from right to left and back again, is just samsara - it's so easy to see if the reference point is not the ego. Just samsara, which in buddhism is confusion, the world of confusion, and the cycle of that confusion. The wheel of confusion. Understood in this way, the political world is just another aspect of our samsaric minds. Swinging one way, then swinging the other. Just as has happened and will continue to happen. Being lost in confusion, wandering, swinging left and right, confused, thinking it's all real from the reference point of the confused ego, looking out at the world like a scared animal - politics, save me! But there's another reference point altogether, another world to live in. It's not some fantasy-land, it's not some matrix-y version where you "see through" things, though it is a way of seeing, of learning to see. This other reference point is a fundamental change in the locus of identity, and it leads you to another world, which is just this world, the one not seen. The question to be asked is what is the existential, cosmic ground upon which our samsaric minds rest? Who is experiencing this moment now, now, now?